HOUSTON — More than two dozen heads of cattle brought traffic to a halt in Houston after some of the livestock escaped from a broken-down trailer.
Thirty-one steers were on their way from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Monday when the trailer’s door unlatched as the truck drove down I-45.
UPDATE: A total of 31 steer got loose on I-45 today near the Harris/Montgomery County lines after they departed @RODEOHOUSTON, @HCSOTexas confirms to @KPRC2, after a trailer door came unlatched. 6 steer remain outstanding as of 2 p.m. pic.twitter.com/zs1YUESXVw
— KPRC 2 Bryce Newberry (@KPRC2Bryce) March 24, 2025
About four hours after six cattle ran free, most were rounded up and put back on the trailer.
The steers are used for roping so they’re trained to come out of a chute and run, Lt. Chris Adolph from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office livestock said.
They are trained not to be caught.
As law enforcement officials tried to bring the animals under control and back to the truck, several drivers hopped out of their cars to lend a hand. That’s something that police said you shouldn’t do.
“You start honking your horn, you start chasing them, waving your hands. All you do is put pressure on them and they want to run,” Adolph said.
Some of the cows made it to a grassy, wooded area while others were rounded up on a median.
“Once we found them, we tracked them and they started coming out this way,” Robert Green, who helped track the animals down, said. “We followed the tracks up until right about here. I’m pretty sure they ran off over here. One of them is bleeding pretty bad because we found blood on the sidewalk and we found tracks of blood throughout the woods as well.”
“We live in Texas, so, you know, it’s nothing new,” Elise Moore said. “They were just kind of running around in the parking lot, ate some grass back there ... we’re just kind of enjoying the show.”
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